“Come on, we’ll follow him,” cried Mary, jumping down.

“And abandon our box?” objected Bennington.  But she was already in full pursuit of the tall cowboy.

The ring around the large boulder—­dragged by mule team from the hills—­had just begun to form when they arrived, so they were enabled to secure good places near the front rank, where they kneeled on their handkerchiefs, and the crowd hemmed them in at the back.  The drilling match was to determine which pair of contestants could in a given time, with sledge and drill, cut the deepest hole in a granite boulder.  To one who stood apart, the sight must have been picturesque in the extreme.  The white dust, stirred by restless feet, rose lazily across the heated air.  The sun shone down clear and hot with a certain wide-eyed glare that is seen only in the rarefied atmosphere of the West.  Around the outer edge of the ring hovered a few anxious small boys, agonized that they were missing part of the show.  Stolidly indifferent Indians, wrapped close in their blankets, smoked silently, awaiting the next pony race, the riders of which were skylarking about trying to pull each other from their horses’ backs.

When the last pair had finished, the judges measured the depths of the holes drilled, and announced the victors.

The crowd shouted and broke for the saloons.  The latter had been plying a brisk business, so that men were about ready to embrace in brotherhood or in battle with equal alacrity.

Suddenly it was the dinner hour.  The crowd broke.  Bennington and Mary realized they had been wandering about hand in hand.  They directed their steps toward the McPhersons with the greatest propriety.  It was a glorious picnic.

The house was gratefully cool and dark after the summer heat out of doors.  The little doctor sat in the darkest room and dissertated cannily on the strange variety of subjects which a Scotchman can always bring up on the most ordinary occasions.

The doctor was not only a learned man, as was evidenced by his position in the School of Mines and his wonderful collections, but was a scout of long standing, a physician of merit, and an Indian authority of acknowledged weight.  Withal he was so modest that these things became known only by implication or hearsay, never by direct evidence.  Mrs. McPherson was not Scotch at all, but plain comfortable American, redolent of wholesome cleanliness and good temper, and beaming with kindliness and round spectacles.  Never was such a doctor; never was such a Mrs. McPherson; never was such a dinner!  And they brought in after-dinner coffee in small cups.

“Ah, ha!  Mr. de Laney,” laughed the doctor, who had been watching him with quizzical eye.  “We’re pretty bad, but we aren’t got quite to savagery yet.”

Bennington hastened to disavow.

“That’s all right,” the doctor reassured him; “that’s all right.  I didn’t wonder at ye in this country, but Mrs. McPherson and mysel’ jest take a wee trip occasionally to keep our wits bright.  Isn’t it so, Mrs. Mac?”